Celebrating Goodness in The Week

      Celebrating today with Ruth Ayres and others who share. I want to celebrate what you can do with children, in this case, my grandchildren. Recently, a friend told me that she flew out of state to spend time with a grandchild so his parents could take a short trip. All he was willing to do was play with his Ipad or watch TV. She was quite upset, wondered why they didn't just hire a sitter since he was not interested in going anywhere, playing anything, reading books together, etc. My own granddaughters do play with different apps and they do watch TV, but mostly they "play" with toys, or imagine different scenarios in that kind of "play", or when something comes along that grabs their interest, they create, too. 
        I shared the following review earlier this week and had already read the book to my youngest granddaughter who will be in first grade. The girls spent part of yesterday and overnight till after lunch today with me. First, scooters around the neighborhood, then after dinner, this is what we did, after playing numerous games of Uno. 

      My review: I wanted to be sure to share this wonderful older book (1955) from Beatrice Schenk de Regniers and terrific Maurice Sendak. I can imagine kids taking off with their own ideas after reading this. These two ask the questions, then act out the silly answers, and in rhyme, too. What can you do with a shoe? "You can put it on your ear/on your beery-leery ear; You can put it on your ear, tra-la./Or wear it on your head/Or butter it like bread/Or use apple jam instead, ha ha." They move on to say this is nonsense and put the shoe in its proper place. There is more: what can you do with a chair, a hat, a broom and on. It is hilarious and my youngest granddaughter and I laughed and laughed. I hope you can find it and use it to find more items to brainstorm lists of "what can you do with a . . .! 

     

Scootering around the Block 

Celebrating Good Things Always

      Celebrating today with Ruth Ayres and others who share.  

"It is no bad thing celebrating a simple life."  Tolkien

           This week filled up fast, and I was busy with gardening, the bookstore, writing, servicing the car, LIFE! I am wishing for a "do nothing" day as Sam described, probably where I'll read all day! Some of my "do nothing" days also mean work in the garden, a pleasure in the time spent in all that beauty. This week, the swallowtails arrived and I happened to be out to see them.  

       This was the girls' final week of school so I had both of them on Tuesday. First, we visited our favorite Indie, The Tattered Cover, to choose books to give their teachers and to browse and discover new ones we'd also like to read. And then we just came back home to sign the books and to read some of the library books I already have, to play. Here's one book to love that I shared last Monday. Author Kyle Lukoff takes a step further in describing those collective animal names of which we are fond. I love ravens and crows, so this page is a favorite. Illustrations by Natalie Nelson are wonderful.

           I worked all day at the bookstore Thursday. We have a new and large donation from a young man who was told to clean out his room! He had so many fantasy books, Harry Potter to Redwall to Riordan's books and on. We are grateful! And we're starting a June sale of half price in Children's books, ready for Summer reading! Here's a small taste!

#NPM18 - 7/30 and Celebrating!

April is  #NPM18 - National Poetry Month.

There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it. - Gustave Flaubert  

            

      Also celebrating today with Ruth Ayres and others who share. 

         Of interest:  See the page on the bar above for the Progressive Poem's schedule of poets, hosted by Irene Latham at Live Your Poem.  It's my turn to share a line today. You can find me HERE!

        And, see what many are doing for Poetry Month, by looking HERE at Jama Rattigan's post at Jama's Alphabet Soup.
          

              My goal for Poetry Month: A haiku diary that may include other forms related to haiku, like haibun, haiga. monoku or renga. I have enjoyed studying about and writing in these forms in past Aprils and alongside other's who've given a challenge in this form. And, I look forward to seeing what parts of this month I will choose to collect in a diary. My first poem speaks of why I am handwriting the poems.

April’s garden,

growing poems 

on lined pages

                    Linda Baie

links:

       Poem one

       Poem two

       Poem three 

       Poem Four

       Poem Five
       Poem Six There's a giveaway on this post!

        Celebrating poetry immersion, writing and reading. Since April 1st, I've written seven poems for my own challenge, six poems for Renee La Tulippe's challenge, A Community Collection, and the Progressive Poem line. Whew! I am a little overwhelmed, not only from the writing but from the marvelous creativity of those others who are also writing, not always every day, but sharing their own and other's beautiful poetry. They give me pause, to try hard to see what the poem does: does to me and does with words. 
        It's a week to celebrate, will continue to be all through April, a favorite month of my year.

Here is Day Seven:

Little and Big Celebrations

      Celebrating today with Ruth Ayres and others who share. 

          This past week, busy and fun, sometimes captured in photos. My daughter and family and a friend of hers and her son are leaving Tuesday for our condo and spring break in the mountains, them to ski and me to write and get ready for April, poetry month. I might be online, but am taking a break from blogging after Monday, want to enjoy the company every day, sometimes sit in a ski lodge and then watch outside to see what I can of the grand-girls skiing. They've progressed quite a bit this year and I want to see how they're doing. 

        This week, I celebrated. . .

 fuzzy trees

wonderful books for children at the bookstore

a tiny bit of spring hope

Celebrating A Success I Didn't Want

      Celebrating today with Ruth Ayres and others who share. 

            Do you ever know you can do something, and also understand it will take time and help from others, but you don't want to do it?

             I am doing more and more at the bookstore. Remember it's run entirely by volunteers? I love working there, helping customers, reviewing donations, that part of the job. I am on the board of directors now, so more is involved. I am the volunteer coordinator which means "asking" a lot from others. When one "asks", my belief is that I also have to step up and do some of the work as well. So. . .

           We are in the process of replacing bookshelves in the basement, an eclectic mix of book ambiance that might either thrill or overwhelm one. I don't know the whole history, but shelves appear to have been placed one by one per need. They are filled to the brim, from biography to a women's section to parenting to sports and everything else you can imagine.

             But, there is also a locked closet walled off at one end that houses the most valuable books, all of these listed on our Amazon site. And it is/was a mess. The final straw was a shelf that collapsed because of the weight of oversized books. I found a heap of books one day when on the search for an order. 

            We've found a carpenter willing to build and replace a little at a time. That's another person's job, to choose the carpenter. And we as a board chose to start with this closet. It has been my job to gather helpers, boxes, plastic sheeting, and to remove every book, keep them in order by SKU number so that those who are most in charge of orders could find them this past week. I didn't want to do it, but there was that moment when I volunteered because no one else did. Yes, I admit, I waited. 

             I wish I'd taken a before and after picture. I will try to at least insert an "after" later. But I, plus two others, did it. We spent Monday afternoon removing the books, placing them in boxes, marking the boxes as to which held what. Tedious, dusty, and now, with the help of one other, DONE! I am celebrating that it turned out well. The new shelves are awesome, well worth the work involved. 

Celebrating "Flakes of Light"

      Celebrating today with Ruth Ayres and others who share. 

         I just finished reading posts for Poetry Friday, and need to share a part of one post with all of you. This excerpt from a shared poem connects to our celebrations, a new-to-me way of collecting beauty from our daily lives.

If a man in China can keep ten thousand dollars' worth
of caterpillars in a metal box underneath his bed
for medicine, then I want to collect flakes of light
for those winter months where we go a whole week

without seeing a slice of sun.  The light I want to collect
is free.  Can't be sold as a cure for muscle ache
or to ward off evil eye.  I write this in August.  It should be
illegal to talk about snow in Western New York now.

from The Light I Collect by Aimee Nezhukumatathil 

         My 'flakes of light' brighten my world.

Spending time

— with Imogene, and having her read to me. She's just beginning and is having a wonderful time looking at all the books she's loved before, but now, can read them herself!

— with Ingrid, sewing pillows for Imogene and herself. She's learning all about the sewing machine, how to fill a bobbin, thread the machine, push on the pedal just enough. She has been hand-sewing for a few years, now is making the tiniest stitches.

— reading. There are so many wonderful books, new and old. I just re-read To Kill A Mockingbird. It is still one that both warms and breaks your heart.

— noticing! Remember that I have a garden that grows "outside" my own fence, the one where I madly fight the bindweed?  Also, I continue to share that we need rain or snow, are so, so dry. It's a season of "brown". But a day or so ago I looked out at this garden, and some of the bushes have grown green sprouts, a beautiful green topping!

— fixing! My front door latch stopped working. I swabbed a little WD-40 into it, and it can now open again!

— writing! For a friend's birthday celebration, I joined her February challenge in a closed FB group and wrote a poem a day. From the warm-up to the wind-down, that meant 43 poems! It is a habit to write every day, but not always a poem. I'm pleased that I did it!

       I'm wishing you your own discoveries of "flakes of light" this week!  

photo credit: Alexey Kljatov (ChaoticMind75) Snowflake macro: ice dust via photopin (license)